Kanoria began his career at the age of 17.[17] His father entrusted him with an independent charge of two family owned flour mills,[18] which were located in Kolkata and Krishnanagar, West Bengal. His task was to restart the former and revive the latter. The family decided to exit out of the flour milling business in 1988. Thereafter, Kanoria and his younger brother, Sunil Kanoria, ventured into the business of infrastructure finance Srei.[17][19]

Hemant has been involved in driving rural entrepreneurship in India. He created a business model under the brand 'Sahaj' to make services like e-governance, e-commerce and e-learning accessible to people in remote geographies. The initiative has opened up revenue opportunities for over 61,000 village level entrepreneurs who are providing these services through IT-enabled Sahaj service centers across India.[20][21][22][23][24]